For the second year in a row, a member of the world’s rarest and most endangered sea turtle species chose a Galveston Island State Park beach to lay her eggs. On Sunday, park staff announced on social media that a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle came ashore, dug a nest and laid 84 eggs.
The turtle was spotted by an off-duty volunteer with the Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research—a center at Texas A&M University at Galveston dedicated to the research and conservation of sea turtles. “Even though not on-duty she happened to be walking the beach (picking up litter like a great steward does) when she saw the turtle in the surf and headed for the beach,” the Facebook post read. “Park rangers were contacted and went out to assist in any way they could.”
The eggs have been collected and taken to the Padre Island National Seashore Division of Sea Turtle Science and Recovery. There, the eggs will be incubated, hatched, and ultimately released. “Galveston is the northern-most tip of their native range,” staff said in response to a question about why the hatchlings will be released at Padre Island. “That is why we have so few nesting sea turtles, compared to the lower Texas coast.”
Galveston Island State Park
The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle is the most critically endangered sea turtle in the world, and is also the smallest of all sea turtle species. Once abundant in the Gulf of Mexico, their populations began to dwindle between the late 1940s and the mid-1980s but are slowly rebounding.
On May 19, 2022, a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle nest was found on Galveston Island State Park for the first time since 2012. The nest, located in the dunes on the beachside of the state park, contained 107 eggs and was only one of three nests found at the park since the turtle patrol began keeping records.
The first Kemp’s ridley sea turtle nest of this year’s nesting season in Texas was found in April on South Padre Island’s Cameron County Beach. It contained 86 eggs.
I am broadly interested in how human activities influence the ability of wildlife to persist in the modified environments that we create.
Specifically, my research investigates how the configuration and composition of landscapes influence the movement and population dynamics of forest birds. Both natural and human-derived fragmenting of habitat can influence where birds settle, how they access the resources they need to survive and reproduce, and these factors in turn affect population demographics. Most recently, I have been studying the ability of individuals to move through and utilize forested areas which have been modified through timber harvest as they seek out resources for the breeding and postfledging phases. As well I am working in collaboration with Parks Canada scientists to examine in the influence of high density moose populations on forest bird communities in Gros Morne National Park. Many of my projects are conducted in collaboration or consultation with representatives of industry and government agencies, seeking to improve the management and sustainability of natural resource extraction.
